We're an eBay affiliate and may be compensated on purchases made through clicks. 

"The Auto Scouts" Busted? $2 Million Forgery Ring Goes Down!

For those of you that remember, I used to expose "The Auto Scouts" forgery eBay accounts all the time. 

"The Auto Scouts" were a forgery ring who sold cheap forgeries of every "star" imaginable. Every single day a new eBay ID would pop up selling their crap. They would constantly change their homemade bogus "COA"s, and try to stay "one step ahead of us" on AML. Originally the majority of their eBay accounts were based in Ohio. Eventually they got slightly smarter and changed the locations

My man Tony came across this article today out of Ohio and sent it my way, telling me "The Auto Scouts" have been busted!

"$2 million Ebay sports autograph fraud uncovered in the Valley"

http://www.wfmj.com/story/29910070/2-million-ebay-sports-autograph-...

4 clowns who have scammed over 25,000 people on eBay, profiting over $2 MILLION. Just as I said all along, it was INSANE what these crooks were getting away with. It looks like we indeed did make a difference in this hobby by exposing these clowns.

Tags: auto, ebay, ohio, scam, scouts, the

Views: 4172

Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Saving their victims money has never been a goal of ebay.

They only care about their profits.

If they cared about saving victims they would have left the EMR team of volunteers in place and not let John Gonzalez, head of the fraud dept, go.

Some people here were part of the EMR team, besides me.

They will never care about anything other than profit. The EMR team did not cost them any money, other than the money they would lose for helping to sell forgeries. The long term health of the autograph hobby means less than nothing to them.

Well stated Richard.  The EMR team was extremely effective, and as you said, didn't cost ebay a dime.  We did out out of our own time, for the right reason.  When they stopped it, the garbage came back in droves.  But they kept cashing their checks.

There's no Ebay division at present to monitor autographed materials?? I was under the impression that they routinely employ their own system of checks and balances for autographed material as well as another outlet for eliminating brand name knock offs. When did this change?

It changed years ago when the EMR Team was dropped by Ebay.

Forgeries were being removed on a daily basis, but then Ebay realized they were losing money by removing them.

In my opinion, it was strictly a financial decision.

I thought there wasn't a forgery industry!!!! 

EBAY laughing at their gullible customers all the way to the bank..........................

"The most successful party—in the end—appears to be eBay, which would have earned more than $300,000 on auction and PayPal fees on $2.4 million in sales. Although eBay cooperated in the case, a company spokesman declined to answer SI’s questions about whether it had contacted potential victims or returned any of the fees."

Sux,,, big time. They are really hurting the autograph hobby.

Awesome! Also, make sure you check that the autographs you buy are not preprints. Im dealing with a JSA authenticated Ghostbusters cast photo with a JSA sticker but the photo is a preprint. funny thing is, JSA website originally stated it was for a different name, when I brought this up to the seller, the seller contacted JSA and they changed the info the next day. Im glad I took screen shots. 3 emails to JSA and they refuse to listen to me even after sending examples of another photo signed in the exact identical way. Im waiting to see how my return goes and may make my own thread of this soon.

RSS

Photos

  • Add Photos
  • View All

Videos

  • Add Videos
  • View All

© 2024   Created by Steve Cyrkin, Admin.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Privacy Policy  |  Terms of Service